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A Bookaholic, Pro-life, Pro-Family, Pro-Oxford Comma, Catholic (with Asperger's) who reads and writes as her obsession. I've been reading over 400 books a year lately. These are my ramblings on some of the books I read. To read about all the books I read and comment on, visit me at LibraryThing or Goodreads.

I've been blogging since 2007 and at this point (July 2015) am trying my hand at turning the theme of this blog towards mystery, thriller, and crime, fiction and nonfiction. I have some special interest topics and categories within this broad genre which include (but are not limited to) serial killers, scandi-crime, Victorian history and historicals, history of the criminally insane and asylums, psychopathology, death, funerary practices and burial, corpses, true crime and anything dealing with the real life macabre, or that portrayed in fiction.

I also read a short story a day from various collections, sometimes anthologies othertimes collections of a single author's work. These reviews are also posted here and while they are of mixed genre the mystery, thriller, horror, gothic and macabre often appear within their pages as well.

Comments: This is a coming of age story of one Italian immigrant boy, Calogero, of uncertain age until the end of the book where we can figure he is about fourteen years old. It is the story of his life with his uncles and cousin, as the only Italian family in a small Louisiana town in 1899. They grow vegetables and are grocers and doing a might fine job at the business. He becomes friends with a small group of black boys and falls in love with one of their sisters, Patricia. The book is filled with their adventures, alligator hunting in the swamp, sneaking a kiss at a church picnic and a meeting with a very old Indian way out in the swamps.

But this story is also set against a very disturbing time in American history. One in which I knew nothing about. The discrimination against Italian immigrants in the south. This was the time of Jim Crow laws which were set up to make sure that the whites had superiority over the blacks but also left certain immigrant groups in a no man's land. The Italians in the south were not considered white and were not welcome where white society was. They were also given a tough time because economically they were taking business away from the white company stores. On the other hand, Italians were neither considered to be black and an Italian was sure to get himself beat up at the least or lynched at the most for fraternizing with the blacks; the whites certainly didn't want the Italians giving the blacks any high and mighty ideas. The Italians were also denied an education at this time as they were not allowed in the white schools and the blacks had their schools in their churches, Protestant, and the Italians were Catholic and therefore chose to go without for the time being. It was within this climate that our main character, Calogero, finds himself.

Based on a true story of which little but the barest of facts are known, Ms. Napoli has brought to life a terribly tragic story and a pocket of time back to the future so that we may not forget the hardships and the abuses that went on not so long ago. A beautifully written story with searing truthfulness. The characters are wonderful and the end is too sad to comprehend. This is a quick little read but it's packed with a lot of punch.

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Goodreads Last 5 Reviews

This is more like it! Much better than the last book. Half of our cast of characters gets shipwrecked on a hurricane island while those left behind plan for an upcoming attack from Quill. Fast-paced, a page-turner for me. I'd read half t...

Fantastic! A very interesting history and biography.This tells the story of the Russian man who invented Tetris, the history of the game itself, and to my surprise the history of the company, Nintendo. I had no idea they've been around s...

A collection of stories with the theme of the Apocalypse; some take place during, others pre- or post-. The stories are presented chronologically by published date with the occasional break in the rule. Robert Silverberg is an excellent ...

The art is cute but otherwise, it did nothing for me. Nothing really happens and there's no explanation for what little does happen. Plus all the names are unpronounceable and there are made-up words which are just plain annoying.

A guy kills himself and keeps waking up, after 4 attempts he realises that every time he dies he possesses the body closest to him. Now the government is after him as they want to use him as an agent. Bloody, violent, irreverent and hila...